The camera and gallery facilities are located at the villa itself, while the edit and production facilities are located at the other site. Timeline has been tasked with providing broadcasting facilities to connect the sites before transmitting the finished edit live to ITV2.

Timeline will use Vislink encoders, mixed by Vislink stream managers, to transmit over four different RF links at various frequencies for a redundant cross-site link. The links will also carry internet back to the villa, to be part of NEP’s Dante audio network and to Teradek encoded monitoring feeds.

As well as the cross-site links, Timeline will again partner with Telenor to secure the satellite space before deploying RF1, Timeline’s production and uplink truck, at the production site. RF1, with its second flyaway dish, enables local and remote Riedel talkback facilities, as well as ingestion and playout of the final edit over redundant satellites to ITV for live broadcast.

“After a very successful partnership with Timeline on Love Island in 2017, ITV has entered into a further contract with the option for a second year,” said Steve Kruger, technical manager, ITV Studios. “In 2018, Timeline will provide over 180 uplink hours across the eight week on-air period. Included in the contract is the option for a technology refresh after 12 months to upgrade inter-site connectivity to HEVC encoding.”